Andrew Breitbart: Evil Menace or Village Idiot?

If Andrew Breitbart took Shirley Sherrod’s speech and edited it to make her look like a bigot, then he is evil and a criminal.

If, as he claims, he only received the edited clips, viewed them, and then without asking any questions, slapped an ill-informed narrative on them and introduced them to the 24-hour news cycle, then he is a moron. TMZ and the National Enquirer look like models of journalistic integrity by comparison.

Since he has a pattern of disseminating heavily edited videos, the burden of proof is on Mr. Breitbart.

Produce your source, Mr. Breitbart.

Show us whether you are evil or just a damn fool.

UPDATE: Who says you can't be both evil and a damn fool? Now Breitbart is arguing that the white farmer Sherrod helped 25 years ago is a plant (h/t Daily Dish):

The Best Day to be Born: July 20, 1969

I’m not one to brag, but I have to say that July 20, 1969 was the best day ever to be born.

The day men first landed and walked on the moon.

The moon, bitches.

The coolest thing humans have accomplished. Ever.

Stewart Mandel, poster boy for what's wrong with the BCS

Well, okay, Mandel isn't THE problem with the BCS. But his latest musings at SI.com highlight one of the biggest issues.

In the article, Mandel offers up his preseason choice for a BCS National Championship showdown:

So, what potential 2010 matchup would elicit a similar curiosity factor? I'll go with Alabama vs. Boise State.

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, and a sports columnist's job is to have interesting opinions. So to that extent, all well and good.

The problem is that Mandel has a vote in the AP Top 25 poll.

Toy Story 3: The Wrath of the Undiscovered Country

The family went to see Toy Story 3 on Sunday. It's not as good as the first two, which is to say that it's merely excellent rather than perfect.

My seven-year-old loved it, and my four-year-old adored it--at one point he exclaimed, "Oh, I love this so much!" The only downside for him, though, was wearing the 3D glasses, which he definitely does not like. There was no point to this movie being 3D, and I think it's borderline cruel to make kids that young have to wear those glasses to see the movie, but he was so excited we couldn't deny him.

A bit of adult anxiety has crept into Toy Story 3, a more muted version than what you saw on display in Up. Young kids will have no problem enjoying the movie, but most have yet to experience time marching on firsthand, and I wondered just what they made of those aspects of the movie. For me, Woody and the gang began to remind me very much of the aging original crew in the Star Trek movies.

Now THIS is racism.

And insanity. Par for the course for Glenn Beck.



And this from a man whose religion banned blacks from the priesthood, officiating in ordinances, and from participating in LDS temple ceremonies until 1978 and also practices vicarious baptism of Nazis and Holocaust victims.

Conference Expansion: Missouri makes sense for SEC

Word is Texas A&M is still very much interested in joining the SEC, and the SEC is interested right back.

The same article states the SEC is attempting to woo Oklahoma to join as well, but Oklahoma is reluctant to leave behind their rivalries with Texas and Oklahoma State.

If the SEC is looking for another Big 12 companion to join with Texas A&M, Missouri could be a good fit.

Missouri borders SEC states Tennessee, Kentucky, and Arkansas. In addition to a storied football as well as a string of recent successful seasons, Missouri boasts a strong basketball program, and is competitive nationally in a broad range of athletics. Perhaps most importantly for the SEC, the University of Missouri would bring with it the St. Louis and some of the Kansas City television markets.

Expansion into both Texas and Missouri would give the SEC more power when renegotiating an already-enormous television contract with ESPN. And were the conference to explore new eastern markets as well, perhaps by adding Virginia and Virginia Tech, the SEC would likely maintain its dominance no matter how much other conferences expand.

For Missouri, entering the SEC with Texas A&M would solve one issue that had many fans grumbling about leaving the Big 12: losing the ability to recruit in the state of Texas.

Think bigger than the Big Ten, Missouri. Think SEC.

Now there's a report that Texas A&M is in discussions with the Southeastern Conference (SEC). In the past, just like that stray dog that you never should have fed, A&M follows the Texas Longhorns wherever they go, so it seems unlikely that relationship would end. But the SEC is some serious kibble.

If the SEC were to add the Aggies, they'd be looking for at least one more team. Thirteen is not a magic number.

That team might as well be Missouri.

Missouri's been all aswoon with the prospect of joining the Big Ten. Certainly they get no love (or money) from their current situation, and the prospect of matchups with the likes of Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and maybe Notre Dame seems like an upgrade.

But if you're upgrading, why not go all the way?

You join the Big Ten, you get to party like it's 1899. The last time a Big Ten member won a college football national championship, The Who were only on their third farewell tour.

You join the SEC, you're joining the ranks of the last four BCS National Champions.

The Big Dogs.

Big money.

One reason Missouri likes the Big Ten is academics. While they'd likely be crushed for years in football, there's a sense that they're superior to the SEC when it comes to academics. But at least according to these rankings, Missouri would fall squarely in the middle of the SEC, which claims a number of fine academic institutions (including Auburn University).

But does the SEC want Missouri? Maybe not. But the St. Louis-Kansas City TV market is an awfully big one to be hanging out there if the Big Televen decides it wants to poach the Big East instead.

The Texas market plus St. Louis and KC? Just go ahead and leave blank the dollar amount on that check, ESPN. The SEC will fill it in with whatever they like.

This is just my personal opinion, of course. I know absolutely nothing. I just want Missouri to land somewhere good.

That Bad, Maybe Worse

The Rules of Proper Racial/Ethnic Casting in Hollywood, According to Liberals Who Are Not Hollywood Elite

So I ran across this article on Huffington Post yesterday about how The Last Airbender and Prince of Persia are racist because they cast white people in the lead roles.

Look, is Hollywood still racist? Undoubtedly. There's been a great deal of progress over time, there's still too little diversity, and too little portrayal of accurate diversity, despite cartoon-liberal cries to the contrary. Too many African Americans talk jive, too many Latins are lusty, and all Arabs who aren't Tony Shalhoub just want to blow things up. Aboriginal peoples all speak like Tonto (even if they're blue and from another planet) and always live in utopian paradises that middle-class white people like to daydream about when they're mowing the lawn or telling the kids to shut up. If only I could don a loincloth and frolic about Eden with the brown/blue people!

But the more I read of the article and comments, the more inconsistent and nonsensical the whole argument became.

Daniel Pipes, bigot, muses aloud

Last week Pat Buchanan was wondering what the deal is with all of the Jews on the Supreme Court.

This week, it's Daniel Pipes' turn to do the Archie Bunker routine.

Apparently Mr. Pipes was home last night, watching the Miss USA pageant with firm attention, and was disappointed that his favorite lost to Rima Fakih.

You see, it's very very bad that Ms. Fakih won. Why? Well, if you can't tell already by her foreign-y name, Ms. Fakih was born in Lebanon! Yes! And what's more,

Fakih grew up in Queens, New York, where she attended a Catholic school. Her family moved to Dearborn, Michigan, in 2003. Though Shiite Muslim, her family celebrates elements of both the Muslim and Christian faiths. (wikipedia)

Who let this woman on the plane to attend the event? Did they inspect her breasts for explosives?

Denied the explosive, climactic victory he sought for his favorite contestant, a dejected and slack Mr. Pipes wrote the following:

They are all attractive, but this surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants makes me suspect an odd form of affirmative action.

Now just in case you didn't quite get the message, Mr. Pipes thought this comment from a reader was worth quoting:

No surprise here. Affirmative action was first applied in beauty contests for  black women to win in the 1980s, then it was the turn of Latin, brown skinned women, and now it's Muslims. That's why most people ignore these rigged "events." They are money losers and require controversy.

It sure as hell is an odd fucking form of affirmative action, Mr. Pipes. Because I'm always reading and hearing about these damn quotas for hot Lebanese women.

I mean, would you just look at her? Who in their right minds would have voted for this woman?

Get a burqa on that woman immediately!

You'd think since Mr. Pipes is so (rightly) worked up about the Danish cartoon controversy and the oppressiveness of the burqa, he might have something positive to say about a woman's act of independence against such oppression. But then that would require that he not be a bigot.

You know, earlier I referred to Buchanan and Pipes' bigotry as an "Archie Bunker routine," and really, that's terribly unfair to Archie. Pipes' sick bigotry is far more insidious, because he attempts to cloak it in the trappings of pseudo-scholarship. He's not just some rabble-rouser like Uncle Pat, he's a real thinker. Just look at his photo on his blog, with his turtleneck and arched eyebrows. "Hmm," he thinks, stroking his beard. "I believe this photograph best expresses what a serious, scholarly person I am." But where's the pipe, Mr. Pipes? Asshole.